In the market, there are more and more types of panels, the industry is constantly innovating, looking for better colors, contrasts, purer blacks, better response speed and all. gap which offers an improvement to launch new monitors with. But in the shadows, for over a decade, a giant has been trying to push little-known panel technology: FED, how exactly does it work?
As we are well aware, CRT technology was with us for many years, even in gaming monitors of the time. But there was a need to evolve or switch to another type of technology that was more profitable and with more benefits, which is why SONY has invested almost a decade in R&D to develop a new panel system that it called field emission display (NOURISHED).
What Is Field Emission Display Technology And How Has It Affected The Industry?
Monitors with concave curved screens have had to give way to new technology that has implemented improvements in all areas, where the main concept is to make flat screens at low cost.
FED uses field electron emission sources over a very large area, supplying electrons that strike the colored phosphor to produce the color image.
In other words, the DEF is based on the CRT by means of a cathode ray tube array with many electron guns, which accelerate them and these in turn excite the phosphors.
What is achieved with this is to combine the advantages of CRT in contrast and response time, with the LCD package and certain aspects of the technologies of the time, such as the best viewing angles, for example, without forgetting the lowest. energy consumption.
SONY started researching and designing this technology in 2000 and planned to launch it en masse around 2009, but LCD won the battle and SONY had to sell some of the EDF technology to AU optronics. These wanted to compete with LCD, but, although they launched some panels, these did not succeed and in 2016 they were discontinued, although transparent technology had already been developed there.
What are the disadvantages of the FED?
There are three drawbacks where DEF has failed in the market and has not been adopted as the benchmark technology:
- The efficiency of the emitters is based on very small radii at the ends, which means that the cathodes can be damaged by ionic impact.
- Second, DEF requires what is called a vacuum cleaner, so the screen tube needs to be sealed and very sturdy.
- Finally, DEF as a technology requires high vacuum levels which are difficult to achieve because when the panel is in use it releases gas and therefore cannot come out because it is toxic.
This last factor is the main one to understand the failure of this technology, because at the time it was extremely expensive to carry out the vacuum process with sufficient guarantees for the industry.
